Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening?
Thatcher’s Children, 11 Sept – 27 Oct
Bank Top, 3 Nov – 22 Dec
‘My job is to shine a light into dark corners, and I want to hold people to account for what I find there.’ Craig Easton.
Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? brings together two award-winning series of work, Thatcher’s Children and Bank Top, seeking to challenge typical stereotypes of northern communities.
Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening?, presented by the University of Salford Art Collection, arrives at the University, where Easton is an alumnus, after launching at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and touring to Blackpool School of Arts earlier this year.
The exhibition in Salford is presented in two parts, beginning with Thatcher’s Children running from 11 September – 27 October in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery. Thatcher’s Children explores the inter-generational nature of poverty and economic hardship as experienced by three generations of one family across the North West.
Following this, Bank Top, for which Easton won the Sony World Photographer of the Year prize in 2021, and most recently the 2023 Arnold Newman Prize, will be displayed both in the Gallery and throughout the New Adelphi Atrium from 3 November to 22 December.
Accompanying the exhibition, the Our Time, Our Place engagement programme aims to empower young people to discuss current issues, explore their own history, and share it through pathways in photography and associated practices.
In Salford, Our Time, Our Place has engaged 12 local young people aged 11-16 years via Salford Youth Service since June 2023. During weekly evening sessions held at Little Hulton Family Hub, participants have the opportunity to use cameras, develop photography skills, explore their local area to take photos, learn how to curate exhibitions and socialise with their peers. The programme aims to empower young people to discuss current issues, explore their own heritage, and share it through photography.
Work made in response to the project by recent graduates and the young people from Little Hulton will accompany Bank Top on display in the New Adelphi Atrium from November.
Craig Easton was born in Edinburgh, brought up in Liverpool and lives in Wirral. He studied Physics at the University of Salford in the 1980’s where he fell in love with photography after joining the student darkroom. He started his career as a photojournalist for The Independent in the early 1990s. BANK TOP, his first monograph published in 2022, was shortlisted for the Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards 2022 and for the Aperture/ParisPhoto Book Award 2022 in the first Photo Book category. His photographs are widely collected by private and public collections including the University of Salford Art Collection, Hull Maritime Museum and St Andrews University Special Collections.
Image: Claire Criffiths
Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? Bank Top Private View
4:30 – 7:00pm, Thursday, 2nd November 2023.
New Adelphi Building, University of Salford
We are delighted to invite you to the private view of Bank Top, the second instalment of Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? at the University of Salford.
Bank Top, for which Easton won the Sony World Photographer of the Year Award in 2021, and most recently the 2023 Arnold Newman Prize, comes to campus from the 3rd of November, continuing until December 22nd.
Join us and Craig to celebrate the launch of Bank Top in Salford. In addition we will be launching part of the Our Time, Our Place engagement programme supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This includes new work made in response to the themes of Craig’s work by 3 new graduates: Zan Atkinson, Helen Constantinou and David Hiney, and work by young people interested in photography from Little Hulton, supported by Gwen Riley Jones.
Please RSVP to artcollection@salford.ac.uk
Craig Easton Photo Ethics Discussion
4pm – 6pm, 09 November 2023
Chapman 6, University of Salford
Join Craig Easton, Gwen Riley Jones, and Liz Wewiora exploring the ethical considerations and role of social documentary photography today.
This event will be held in person in Chapman 6 at the University of Salford, and will be livestreamed to Youtube.
Click here to RSVP.
Bank Top Exhibition Tour
12pm, 28 November 2023
New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery
Join us for a curator tour of the second instalment of Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening?, Bank Top, on Tuesday 28th November.
Join us to explore the internationally recognised artwork and ask any questions you may have for the curatorial team.
The tour is drop-in, free to attend and all are welcome.
Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? is a touring exhibition, commissioned by the University of Salford Art Collection and has already toured to Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool and Leftcoast in Blackpool. The exhibition will tour to Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead in January 2024.
In addition to the tour and engagement programme the funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund will also enable key pieces of Easton’s work to enter the University of Salford Art Collection, as a permanent legacy of the project.
Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place is presented by the University of Salford and generously supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.